


The Song of the Whale Road

by fresne



Series: Variations on an Equation [24]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: A/B/O, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe - Always a Different Sex, Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting, Alternate Universe - Vikings, Beta John, Byzantine Greek John, F/M, Female John, MaleOmega/FemaleBeta, Omega Sherlock, Omega Verse, Viking Sherlock, Vikings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-11
Updated: 2015-04-17
Packaged: 2018-02-24 22:49:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,409
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2599400
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fresne/pseuds/fresne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jinis Blackheart had been born to be a Berserker.</p><p>Sherlokr Quickwit of Holdalanda had been born under a wandering star. He'd have sailed his ship over the edge of the world if he were able to find it. It was to his good fortune that Ioanna of Byzantium was of the same mind.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings: For Omegaverse? Vikings? Okay, some violence. 
> 
> One self indulgent joke about Snori Tightpants (blink and you'll miss it). For context - nothing to do with this story - I once sat in a Japanese ryokan where we took turns reading an Icelandic saga (don't remember why we had it) as if we were the Swedish chef. Snori Tightpants was the highlight.
> 
> Oh, but about this story, umm... yeah. MaleOmega-Sherlock/FemaleBeta-John.
> 
> The following may be considered as inspiration for my work and inspiration for my dialogue, possibly even quotes because apt quotes are cool:  
> Song of the Gold Giver...err I read it in college. A Nordic poem.

Jinis Blackheart had been born to be a Berserker.

Oh, the Singer of Scalds cautioned told him not to be too eager for no one may know their fate, be it Alpha, Omega or Beta, and would have told the tale of Gundr Dragonheart had Jinis Blackheart not stopped his tongue. 

His foster Mother, Red Robert of Frankland, spat on the floor. "Betas are pigs meant for the slaughter." 

He paid the Singer's Jarl his death geld of fifteen hundred shillings and suited his words to actions in the Jarl's own Mead Hall. 

Privately, Jinis Blackheart thought it kinder to kill the thrall than let him tongueless live.

Red Robert of Frankland could afford that price and a dozen others. He was a Berserker. With twenty dragon ships under his command that plundered many a sea coast village up and down Eire and down the coasts of Briton. 

It was an honour to be the foster of such an Omega. 

Jinis Blackheart praised the day that Freyja, goddess of Love and War, set her gift down upon him to be an Omega, and not a mere Alpha, untouched by battle madness, or spit upon the earth, a Beta, and good for nothing but to be a thrall.

Laughing, he'd warned the King of Northumbria that their dragon ships were to come to their coast just to see his foster Mother howl in greater battle.

Red Robert of Frankland was cut down like a dog by a lucky archer. First an arrow pierced his pants, but they were so tight that the arrow did not go deeply, so he battled on without noticing in his fury. Then an arrow pierced his heart and he fell to the earth.

Jinis Blackheart laughed and spun his axe. He was slight in build, but in his battle madness more than made up for any lack of height.

They sacked the monastery of Lindisfarne and Whitby too. The spoils were fine. 

Jinis Blackheart was feared from Vineland to Novgorod. He had three hundred ships. His Omegas were all Berserkers, and sometimes went into battle with rounded bellies from the long winter. Heated flesh will forge new metal when it can. 

Sweeter yet was to drink the brew that would bring on their battle heat madness. They would rave through all the battle and then sticky with victory and the blessing of Freyja on them, they took the rut of their Alpha captives as a prize. It was well known that for the Omega lucky enough to breed from these out of season couplings, those children would be doubly blessed by Freyja. Jinis Blackheart was himself one such.

In this, there was no one to match him and he sewed much discord in the Mead Hall of the King.

~~~~  
Sherlokr Quickwit of Holdalanda had been born under a wandering star. He'd have sailed his ship over the edge of the world if he were able to find it. 

No sooner had he birthed the child of his first heat, and fostered him with Marta Hudsdater, a Beta freewoman of some prestige, but he set out upon the whale roads in his dragon ship. That he should wander was not looked upon with disdain. However, that he disdained the gift of Freyja and would rather have had no more of it was much talked upon.

Rather than Freyja, he took up Odin as his god, as if he were an Alpha, and claimed the search for wisdom as his own. 

It was in these wanderings for knowledge that took him to fair Byzantium where he learned what he could of what the ancient Greeks had known, for all he could not read their writings. 

This was how he met Ioanna of Byzantium in the marketplace of that city. He hired this Beta with amber to read for him. She was the only one who would take the amber of an Omega. Most in that city behaved as it were a shame to be blessed by the goddess and in their disdaining suggestion that he should keep himself to the hearth of home, he for the first time came to the defense of his own gender. 

There was no such disdain from Ioanna. This Beta, who'd have been a thrall in his home, took his amber willingly with a rueful smile. She'd travelled as far east in the empire as she could go, and come home worn from her travels, content to serve as a scribe.

This was the lie she'd told herself, and he told her that it was a lie. She might have considered herself the civilized one, but when he offered her a place on the whale roads, she snatched it up with both hands.

They sailed into the west. The world serpent tossed the sea and Sherlokr called back to Ioanna, "I said it would be dangerous."

Ioanna would have replied, but wave tossed, she was too busy. Still her face was wreathed in smiles.

When the sea calmed, they saw the green flash on the horizon that meant that the world serpent peered over the edge of the world, and the crew cheered.

When they returned to the Mead Hall of the King, Sherlokr Quickwit raised his mead horn and said, "Sacking villages for trinkets. Raving with madness. There's no point to that. Have you tasted the sweet nuts that we brought back from our voyage to the West? We sailed across the sea with but a single ship until we came to a place where the water is warm as milk fresh from a cow and the sand was as white and soft as a king's sugar." Then he smiled and he said, "My Ioanna is most skilled with her Astrolabe." 

Ioanna may have blushed, but those at the table could not tell with her skin so dusky a hue. She looked up at Sherlokr Quickwit. "Yet it is I who am in amazement that you set it to working upon the prow of a ship with waves that should have cast us into the deep."

To their shame, it was said in the mead hall, that they coupled out of season. There were none who did not know it.

If he and his Beta had coupled in the cold of winter, this was to be expected. Who did not couple with a Beta thrall when the wolves of the winter howled at the door?

But even as the days lengthened, Sherlokr Quickwit coupled with his Beta openly in the Mead Hall of the King. Sherlokr Quickwit was not dedicated to Odin then. No, then he cried out Ioanna's praises.

More astonishing yet, when the blessing of Freyja was on him and they withdrew to the Queen's longhouse, it was the Beta who pleased him with implements she had brought with her from her travel's east.

Jinis Blackheart glared upon them as Sherlokr Quickwit cried out Ioanna's name until the Queen Irofast said, "We will have to change your name to Frowning Jinis," as she offered him the mead cup.

Jinis Blackheart was full of disdain for such an Omega. 

Worse, he was bored. He'd sacked villages up and down the coasts. He wanted greater discord. He sewed it as one might sew the teeth of a dragon to corrupt the land.

Sherlokr Quickwit revealed Jinis Blackheart's plots openly in the Mead Hall of the King. He revealed the discord that Jinis Blackheart sewed until the King turned his face from Jinis Blackheart.

Jinis Blackheart' ships were taken from him and his lands were given to Sherlokr Quickwit and his Beta. 

Sherlokr Quickwit laughed, "What do I need with lands?" So it was to his elder brother's keeping, the Jarl of Holdalanda, the lands were placed until his son, if Alpha or Omega, could claim them.

As to Jinis Blackheart, only his Beta thrall, Mjoll, stayed by his side. 

They set a trap. 

Sherlokr Quickwit was to set forth on a voyage, but they drew Ioanna from Sherlokr's side with word of a lost Greek traveller. 

Or they thought they did.

They arrived at the meeting place, only to find that Sherlokr Quickwit had declined to arrive. He and his Ioanna had set sail along with whale roads on their dragonship to see if they could find the edge of the world.

They did not. 

They did keep looking.


	2. [podfic] The Song of the Whale Road

Size: 3.38, 9:37  
[Download this episode (right click and save)](http://fresne.podbean.com/mf/web/kqmrn5/SongoftheWhaleRoad.mp3)

**Author's Note:**

> If after reading my fiction here, you would like to read more about me and my writing check out my profile.


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